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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27952628">Kubler-Ross can fuck right off (stages of grief any % speedrun)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiso/pseuds/Eiso'>Eiso</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>vangh0st au [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Let's Play Cyberpunk Red - Polygon (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Five Stages of Grief, Major Character Undeath</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-08</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-11 00:07:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,923</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27952628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eiso/pseuds/Eiso</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You can’t imagine why Vang0 wanted you to come here, or why you have to be here specifically for them to tell you whatever it is that’s so important, but Vang0’s your friend, and you try to make a point of being there for your friends, so now you’re here in this creepy ass warehouse and the spot you’re supposed to go to is just two aisles over and you round the final corner and -- well, that’s a body.”<br/>a.k.a Burger finds Vang0’s body, and the aftermath</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>vangh0st au [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047067</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>17</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Kubler-Ross can fuck right off (stages of grief any % speedrun)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This one gets pretty dark, not gonna lie -- it deals with the grieving process and Burger coming to terms with the fact that he can’t really do anything about Vang0’s situation, so it’s not exactly going to be fun, but it will reach a (hopefully) satisfying conclusion by the end<br/>tw: death/grieving, descriptions of violence, minor self-injury</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <em>
    <span>12 January 2043</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>The warehouse is one of those bot-run places owned by some megacorp that’s too cheap to hire actual human workers, so it’s pretty easy to break in, but you’re still on edge as you ease open the door and step inside. Vang0 sent you the address this morning -- or you think it was Vang0, it was sent in their usual disjointed style, but you suppose it could be someone impersonating them, they’ve never actually asked you to go anywhere or do anything for them before, ah well, if it is a trick or a trap you can always just kill whoever’s trying to cause you trouble, and you really hope this doesn’t end up with you cooling your heels in a shallow grave somewhere after having all your organs harvested to sell on the black market but even if it does it’s not like you were about to refuse to help Vang0 with whatever all this is -- they said it was important, that they had something they needed to tell you, so you glance down at your agent to verify the GPS tag, check that your gun’s loaded and the safety’s off, and carefully walk inside. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>These places are always a little bit spooky, but there’s something about this one that puts you particularly on edge -- the rust stains and chips in the wall, the few flickering lights that remain from when they were installed decades ago, the robots that follow their predetermined paths free of any human interference -- and you can’t imagine why Vang0 wanted you to come here, or why you have to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>here </span>
  </em>
  <span>specifically for them to tell you whatever it is that’s so important, but Vang0’s your friend, and you try to make a point of being there for your friends, so now you’re here in this creepy ass warehouse and the spot you’re supposed to go to is just two aisles over and you round the final corner and --</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, that’s a body. A pretty old one too, so the thing Vang0 needed you here for probably doesn’t involve covering up a murder, or at least not a recent one, but you offer to help them dispose of it anyways and they’re messaging you something about the skeleton being theirs and you kinda figured that they were responsible for it but that’s a funny way to put it and they’re clarifying that no, the skeleton belongs to them, and they’re saying that that is their corpse, and they’re saying that they’re dead, and they’re saying that they’ve been dead the entire time you’ve known them and they’re asking you to bury them somewhere and -- this is a cruel joke to play, and you tell them so, but </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You know that this isn’t something Vang0 would joke about, and they tell you as much as your vision blurs a little bit at the edges, tunnels out until all you can see are Vang0’s empty eye sockets staring at you accusingly, the wisps of blood-encrusted blond hair still pinned beneath their skull from where they must have lain dying, their teeth exposed in a mockery of a grin telling you that -- you failed them, your friend died, was </span>
  <em>
    <span>killed </span>
  </em>
  <span>and forgotten and you never even noticed that something was off, </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Never thought twice about the huff of cold air that brushed across the back of your neck whenever a particularly good joke made Vang0’s messages devolve into incoherent keysmashes, never thought that maybe the long pauses and constant repetitions and rambling circular narratives that characterized their messages weren’t just from whatever drugs you assumed they were on, never thought that maybe they weren’t simply being an asshole when they would go radio-silent for weeks at a time and then reappear acting like no time had passed, never thought </span>
  <em>
    <span>never thought</span>
  </em>
  <span> because you were so </span>
  <em>
    <span>fucking</span>
  </em>
  <span> oblivious that you didn’t notice your best friend was a goddamned ghost, and even just now your brain is too slow to fully process this and Vang0 is sending worried messages, they’re hurt that you don’t believe them -- you do, </span>
  <em>
    <span>fuck</span>
  </em>
  <span>, you do believe them, it all makes horrible horrible sense -- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And instead of reassuring them like a decent friend you’re still staring at the way the fluorescence reflects dully off the knife laying over the delicate bones of the body’s -- Vang0’s -- outstretched hand, the way the shadows flicker over exactly seven bullet holes in the wall behind them, the distinct lack of any gun in the room,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And instead of reassuring them like a decent friend you’re running a hand along the rat-gnawed curve of Vang0’s cheekbone -- cold and a little rough under your fingertips --</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And instead of reassuring them like a decent friend you’re mindlessly stowing any potential clues to your friend’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>murder</span>
  </em>
  <span> in your backpack, </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And instead of reassuring them like a decent friend you’re sitting down as the lights in the room refract into lines that starburst across your vision -- you’re not crying, you’re </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span> --</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Vang0 has to go and apologize for upsetting you, to send their attempt at a comforting message -- </span>
</p><p>
  <b>
    <em>Vang0 </em>
  </b>
  <em>
    <span>Today at 4:33 PM </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Burger </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>bBurger It’s ok ay -</span>
  </em>
  <span>\</span>
  <em>
    <span>/B </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Im still her e </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>i’m stlil here -</span>
  </em>
  <span>\</span>
  <em>
    <span>/B </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>it will it’ll take more than </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>the n </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>than dyi </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>it’ll take moer thandeath to slowm e down pls stop pcriyn -</span>
  </em>
  <span>\</span>
  <em>
    <span>/B</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>-- and it’s the last straw, you can’t fucking deal with this right now, and maybe it makes you a bad friend but your best friend is dead and you don’t know how to fix it so, you feel justified in breaking down just a little. You’ll deal with Vang0 later.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>14 January 2043 </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>So, someone killed your best friend. Murdered them. Shot them across the throat. They died choking on their own blood and the fact that they can’t properly remember the pain and fear they must have felt doesn’t change the fact that they felt it, and you’re angry in a way you don’t think you’ve ever felt before. Sure, you were angry when the agricorp took the farm but you were a kid then, didn’t have the context for what you felt when your Da told you to pack up your things and your Pop had to explain why you couldn’t take the horses with you and your Ma left the house one night with a gun and never came back but the man who’d made your Da cry never came back either; sure, you were angry when you stormed away from the leader of your Nomad gang, but you had a plan then, could key their truck and steal a van and head out to make a life for yourself on your own; sure, you get angry every time you’re on a job and someone looks at you funny, but it’s shallow anger then, quick to spark and quick to die out once you chuck something at the offender or slam their head through a wall or just drive a fist into their gut -- this is different. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone murdered Vang0 and they died scared and alone and were left to rot for over a decade and they don’t even know why, they can’t tell you who to fight to fix this because they don’t remember and there’s no leads beyond a laptop (mechanisms long since shorted out and corroded after sitting in a pool of Vang0’s blood for hours as it dried), a knife (with one set of fingerprints, presumably Vang0’s), and some 10mm bullets that you can get for a dime a dozen at any corner store -- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So you’re angry and sad and confused and you can’t fucking </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>anything about it, there’s nobody to question and nobody to kill, nobody that needs your help anymore and nobody that’s going to help you. You can’t even get properly angry at yourself because Vang0 sends you worried messages whenever you speak the truth (says they’re the only one allowed to insult you like that), and whenever the useless impotent rage becomes too much -- when you’re reduced to slamming your head against the ground until the impacts knock all the bad thoughts out of your head -- you feel the cold brush of air that you’re learning to associate with Vang0 against the back of your head with every hit, like they’re trying to cushion the blows, and that only makes you feel like an even worse friend so it’s kinda counterproductive overall. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>So you have no path to revenge and no way to punish yourself and no way to help Vang0; the only things you have are some old bones in your spare duffel and the afterimage of a person more than a decade gone that still, somehow, managed to become the most consistent bright spot in your stupid worthless life.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>20 January 2043</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>You think maybe you should get a hologram for the van, program it so Vang0 can hijack it, speak through it like some fucked up ouija board, and you know it won’t be the same as being able to talk to them face to face -- you know, now, </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That you’ll never get to see Vang0 smile, won’t get to hear them laugh at your jokes or groan in frustration when they get taken out ten seconds into a sixnite match, will never get to introduce them properly to Fries so she can thank them for the cat food that is “anonymously” delivered every month (Vang0 is not as sneaky as they think they are), will never get to pick them up in a hug to comfort them when they’re sad or celebrate with them when they’re happy -- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But maybe a hologram could come close, Vang0 could pick out a voice setting, could customize the avatar however they like, and it wouldn’t really be your friend speaking to you but it might be easier than deciphering their garbled texts -- not that you mind, honestly, you’ve gotten pretty good at understanding them and it’s nice to instantly know who the message is from regardless of whether it’s a text on your agent with a new M-House video or a pop-up ad on a poster warning you about an enemy you missed during a fight -- and so you bring up the idea to Vang0 one day, and the comforting chill that had settled into your bones as you showed them the trailer to an old movie you thought they’d enjoy dissipates in a horrible rush of warm air, and the way Fries’ eyes track seemingly nothing back and forth across the van indicates that Vang0 is pacing as they formulate a response,</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s mostly garbled nonsense, messages half formed and backtracking and repetitive in the way that Vang0 gets when they’re trying to figure out what exactly to say, but eventually they manage to communicate that they don’t know if a hologram would even work, they’ve never tried to mess with audio signals before and don’t want you to waste money on an experiment that might be a complete failure when you can communicate with them just fine as is, and you’re not sure how to explain to Vang0 that yes, the way you talk with them now is perfectly satisfactory, </span>
  <em>
    <span>and</span>
  </em>
  <span> you would love to be able to talk to them somewhat in person every now and again, but you try your best to word it properly and Vang0 responds with a tentative agreement to try and you shiver slightly as their freezing presence settles reassuringly back at your side, and you like to imagine that when your fingers start to go numb from the cold it’s because Vang0’s holding your hand.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>28 January 2043</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Even though, functionally, nothing has changed about your friendship with Vang0, it’s -- different, now. The concern that you feel when they go radio-silent for days at a time shifts from worrying that they’ve gotten into trouble to worrying -- and silently, horribly, shamefully hoping -- that they’ve left you, gone to move on from the limbo they exist in; the chill that you now know marks their presence no longer causes you to move near the heater but to revel in the way your extremities slowly turn pale and ever so slightly frostbitten because at least the pain proves that Vang0 is there; </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The constant typos and repetitions in Vang0’s messages go from making you worry about what kind of mind-altering substance they’re on to sparking questions about the mind-altering qualities of death and whether their incoherence will get worse -- will continue until all that is left is the flickering lightbulb of a once-bright conscious, until there’s just fear and confusion following you around like Granny’s ghost did back at the farm -- and the real question that you shove to the back of your mind, refuse to contemplate, is whether that would make you abandon them, whether there will come a day when you can no longer parse Vang0’s messages, whether, when the day comes that they trail off into scrambled letters without a </span>
  <em>
    <span>-</span>
  </em>
  <span>\</span>
  <em>
    <span>/B</span>
  </em>
  <span> to mark the end of a phrase, you’ll still respond or whether you’ll simply put your agent on Do Not Disturb and continue on with your life, and</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You know you wouldn’t do that (you </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope</span>
  </em>
  <span> you wouldn’t do that), you know that Vang0 won’t suddenly get worse now that you know the truth (you </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope</span>
  </em>
  <span> they won’t suddenly get worse), but you still can’t help staying awake at night and scrolling up to the oldest messages from Vang0 you have saved and frantically counting the typos, trying to quantify if they were the same then as they were the last conversation you had with them, and you’re not smart enough for this, you’d ask Dasha but she doesn’t believe in ghosts, doesn’t have almost two decades living in a farmhouse with her grandmother’s spectre staring at her all night, doesn’t have her best friend’s bones in a duffel by her bed, doesn’t have a heated blanket to keep her from freezing her tongue to her jaw at night because her best friend isn’t a walking AC unit, </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And now that they have permission to leech off your warmth Vang0 spends most of their time settling beneath your skin like they could borrow the breath from your lungs and </span>
  <em>
    <span>god</span>
  </em>
  <span> you’d give it to them if you could, in a heartbeat, but it’s too late to save them and you can’t really do all that much to help them, so you just turn the heat up high in your van and tell Vang0 to come over, they need to see this video </span>
  <em>
    <span>right now</span>
  </em>
  <span>, and let your agent autoplay until Dasha pings you with a job and you need to head out.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>10 February 2043</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Fries got into the duffel yesterday (you think some of her kibble got in there somehow) and when you went to put back Vang0's strewn bones you couldn’t quite look into their eye-sockets as you zipped up the bag -- they stared up at you, empty and accusing, and it felt too much like you were hiding them away, ignoring them like they’d been ignored for thirteen fucking years before you found them, before Vang0 had led you to them -- so here you are, at some fancy craft store (Jones Fabrics or something), buying wire and rivets and duct-tape and whatever else you might need to stick some bones back together, getting weird looks from the store employees as you ask Vang0 which wire they think would best suit their complexion. It’s almost like they’ve never seen a guy talking to a skeleton before, what is this world coming to, Vang0 hack their speakers to play </span>
  <em>
    <span>The Ghosts That Haunt Me</span>
  </em>
  <span> or something --</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So apparently Jones Fabrics isn’t a big fan of the Crash Test Dummies, but you manage to snag what you need as security ushers you from the store and you don’t even need to pay for it so it’s all good in your books, plus the next stop on your little shopping trip should go much smoother, the lady at the thrift store knows you, and Vang0 helped you set up her wifi a few months ago, so she might even give you a discount on whatever you end up finding, and you think you still have that gift card for a particularly discrete black-market gun modder who can wire Vang0 back together without asking too many questions, so really this is all going as smoothly as could be expected.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>By the time you manage to get everything back to the van and Vang0 settled up against the wall you’re a little tired from carrying them around all day, but the flurry of heart and star emojis Vang0 sends as you arrange the wig just so on their skull gives you such a warm fuzzy feeling in your chest that you simply have to call them over, balance the controller in their bony hands and fix a streaming cam over one eye socket and settle down next to them, rest a hand on the cool surface of their kneecap, smile down at their cheap wig and crooked jaw and gnawed-on limbs, </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And maybe your best friend is a long dead echo of a person you never got to know, maybe their killers are still out there with no hope of bringing them to justice, maybe you’ll never get to properly hear Vang0 laugh or learn the shape of their face, but sitting shoulder to shoulder with them as a now-familiar chill brushes over your arm, you can almost picture them smiling back.</span>
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